The Power of Narratives

We understand myths to be ancient stories that have been passed down. Although that does bear some truth, it wouldn't be totally correct, as it's a vague statement that doesn't take into consideration the way contemporaries have shaped myth. But in short, myth is a story that explains phenomena. Stories that have stood against times long enough to become ancient fiction. In my opinion, the really really good myths have all become religions.

Reading and studying myth is just as powerful as writing it. But when you’re writing something that you know to be utterly false, you are now the divine creator capable of wielding power to whichever magnitude. The power of fiction, but more importantly the power of narratives, serves both its creators and its consumers. A potent enough story could serve as a weapon to the one telling it. How we wield the lessons taught in these myths is how we are remembered. The story of Christ coming out of the mouth of a priest may sound more beautiful than the mouth of a dictator. “The history of mythology is a tale told by idiots—but also by sages, religious fundamentalists and agnostic theologians, idealists and cynics, racists and fascists, philosophers and scholars” (Leonard and McClure 5). The spoken tales we once told ourselves within community rituals have become the ones we read on our own, the stories we watch in dark rooms, or the ones we hear read to us in mass on weekends. In our most devout and even in times of escape, narrative obtains us. 

I'm aware that my musings seem to denounce myths or stories. That's not the case at all. I believe it's important to keep this in mind in the classroom because stories are as human as speech. Just as stories can be nuanced and grey so is humanity. Every tale we tell is a truth about us and how we perceive the world. Therefore, for that reason alone the story must be heard. The teacher in a classroom is as powerful as the sage, director, dictator, and pope. 

If you cannot hold a group of people's attention with your own fabrications, do so with those of others. If the teacher is a good enough storyteller, they can command any classroom they enter. What students remember isn't always the contents of the class, but the impact the instructor's ability to share has laid within them.